Shut up and let the lady speak!
I find I am in agreement with David Limbaugh more than anyone else concerning the Miers nomination: if the president proposes someone as a judge or justice, the Senate’s role in “advice and consent†should be as close to the Framers’ intent as possible, that is, as Hamilton voiced in The Federalist, determine of they are qualified as to ability and character. Political and philosophical considerations are simply none of the Senate’s business as concerning presidential appointments. (That is to say, a little more bluntly, if the Senate wants appointees to pass some political or philosophical litmus test(s) then the Senate should just bugger off.)
That being said, if the lady’s own representations are to be believed (and no one has—yet! But wait—advanced charges of mendacity in her direction), then, given the unassailable facts of her legal experience and capabilities, she also brings one stellar qualification to the position. Riffing off her experience clerking for Judge Joe Estes of the U.S. District Court for North Texas, she had this to say:
Now, that’s what I want in a judge. Any judge. Someone who will decide a case based solely on the facts and the law. Period. Ya want something else, and that makes you someone who only appreciates the law for what you can twist it into to suit you, that is, someone who ought to belong to the ACLU.
Oh, yeh. Forgot *sigh* A tip o’ the hat to Hugh Hewitt for the link to the Miers questionaire pdf linked above (whence the quick and dirty jpeg of Miers own words).
Linked at Outside the Beltway and Basil’s Blog